Getting Worked

I often tell my clients the worst part of being a personal trainer is having to lie about your social life. You can’t spend half an hour in the weight room with someone, talk about the beer you’ve been brewing, and the pizza you’re going to make, and still expect them to listen to your dieting advice.

The worst part isn’t the chit-chat. It isn’t the unmotivated clients. It isn’t even the uncomfortable smells, noises, and attention from people twice your age. It’s the money. For an industry that relies on trained and certified experts, starting at the bottom means earning less than minimum wage.

“As aesthetically pleasing as the fitness industry is, it has one major problem: unbilled time. It’s common practice at small studios to hire trainers as 1099 contractors, and only pay them for class time.”

I’m Asher. I’m a freelance… Everything. When times are good, all I do is write. When times are bad, I’ll work whatever gig comes my way. It was during an especially bad stretch, that I took an in-person job as a personal trainer. The hook, as they set it, was $25 per hour with three guaranteed clients, and space to recruit as many of my own client as I could.

The reality was I was making $6 per hour running poorly constructed group classes for a small client base, with almost no equipment.

As aesthetically pleasing as the fitness industry is, it has one major problem: unbilled time. It’s common practice at small studios to hire trainers as 1099 contractors, and only pay them for class time. Set up time, clean up time, and the time between classes is all unbillable. Which is fine when you’re only teaching 1-3 evening classes in a block. It isn’t when you’re teaching seven classes per day, spread out through the afternoon.

On top of that is the time spent building programs, handling paperwork, and studying. There’s also the time spent bringing in leads, maintaining social profiles for marketing and networking. For every hour of sweat in the studio, there’s another spent outside of it keeping the business afloat. At one point I put 30 hours of work into program development, only to have the studio owner bill me at half the promised rate.

Effort Versus Reward

It doesn’t matter how much you’re paid, do your job well. That’s the message I received from my grandfather when I was young, and it’s something I hold strongly to today. But working as a personal trainer strained that conviction. Severely.

Working that job I had two options: put in the full degree of my effort for the sake of my clients, or scale back on what I did for the studio such that the pay I received matched the hours I invested. I did the first as long as I could, but I’m ashamed to say, I didn’t hold to it. I had other clients, other gigs, and other responsibilities to take care of. I’m a freelancer, and what was meant to be a part time gig to make ends meet was taking up so much of my time I couldn’t bring in my usual number of contracts.

I worked between classes, writing content, and communicating with clients. I took Skype calls and phone calls whenever personal training clients weren’t in the room. I started setting hard limits on my available hours, and stopped attending non-mandatory non-paid workplace events. I weaseled an additional ten hours a week into my schedule for freelance work, and onboarded two new clients.

Despite all that, I was still earning well below target. The hours I worked were long, inconsistent, and unpleasant. The crop of clients I managed to find paid less than I wanted, and the personal training job took up too much of my time to justify the payout; even after I scaled back my contributions. Trying to fit 75 hours of work into a 50 hour work week never pays off, especially when someone else controls your time.

I should note, though, that my personal training clients showed wonderful progress, despite the fact the studio owner had misrepresented the work I was supposed to do. He had me running $10 classes instead of $50 training sessions. Yet, I was still able to help my clients improve. In their own words, they made more progress in three months with me than they had in years of working with other trainers. It wasn’t due to anything unique or special that I was doing; I just took the time to do things by the book.

What Personal Training Really Is

Being a good trainer is easy. Being a financially successful trainer is easy. Being a good financially successful trainer is hard. In order to provide value to your clients, you need a strong scientific background, great observational skills, and the ability to communicate. You need to be a coach, a psychologist, and a friend. There aren’t any shortcuts to good results. But when you’re averaging $15 per session, and spending an hour or two at your desk for every one in the studio, it takes serious dedication to see it through.

These days, I’ve limited my PT work to remote clients only. I’ve cut out the middlemen. It’s more of a hobby than a job, as the bulk of my time is taken up with content strategy and writing. But the fitness industry is huge, and these practices are common. Some trainers are lucky enough to be paid minimum wage between classes when they manage the floor. Many more are working in the exact same situation I did. Bad hours, no benefits, increased tax liabilities, and low pay for a job that takes over your life.

This is the part where I’m supposed to write something witty, isn’t it? Merde. I’m a writer, an editor, a personal trainer, a video editor, a web developer — I’m Asher. I freelance. You can find me on Medium, Illogical Life, and LinkedIn.